Abstract
During studies of the growth of neonatal piglets it is important to be able to accurately assess changes in body composition. The purpose of this study was to compare the in vivo measurements of body composition of small piglets using QMR and DXA and to validate those results by chemical analysis. A total of 25 pigs (1.7 ‐ 4.1 kg) were measured by QMR (EchoMRI) and by DXA (Lunar Prodigy). Both instruments were tested as supplied by the manufacturer, with QMR measuring total body fat, water, and lean and DXA measuring total body fat and lean. The chemical measure of total body fat was highly correlated with both the QMR (r = 0.96) and DXA (r = 0.98) fat measurements and the correlation (r) between QMR and DXA was 0.93. However, DXA overestimated the amount of fat by 31% (P<0.05), whereas QMR overestimated the amount of fat by only 3.4% (P>0.05). The chemical measure of total body water was highly correlated with both the QMR (r = 0.98) and DXA (r = 0.99) measurements of total body lean mass and the correlation between QMR and DXA was 0.99. The DXA measure of total body lean was 18% more (P<0.05) than that measured by QMR. The QMR measure of total body water was 8% less (P>0.05) than that measured by chemical analysis. These studies indicate that QMR represents a potentially accurate method for measuring the body composition of piglets offers the advantages of no exposure to X‐ray radiation and measurement without the pig being anesthetized.
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